Memo to men and women in Newspaperland who suffer interminable coughing when asked to make a commitment:
Study the public life of Andy Weissman, who will be bowing out of his lifetime community role in four months, just after the April City Council election.
Vice mayor for the past eight months, the 65-year-old quintessential public servant is the original Man Who Came to Dinner – and Stayed. And Stayed.
Except, he was very welcome.
His 30 years inside City Hall, in a happy jigsaw puzzle of appointed and elected roles, are down to their final 120 days.
When Mr. Weissman enters, he stays.
He notices when he does not see many familiar faces around him.
He was talking about how apathy toward communal service, his specialty, has a corrosive effect on small towns.
“Take a look at Culver City,” Mr. Weissman said. “For decades, we had a very, very large volunteer community service group.”
He remembers when “people belonged to seven or eight community service organizations – Rotary, Exchange, Lions, Optimists. Others existed that I have forgotten.
“A lot of community activists who were involved in community building through community service have gone away. And they have not been replaced.
“Every community service organization is having difficulty recruiting new members and retaining members willing to make the same kind of time commitment that existed years ago,” Mr. Weissman said.
“You still have some people who have been members 20, 30, 40 years in Rotary or Exchange.”
Mr. Weissman could be Illustration No. 1.
“I have been on the Board of Managers of the Culver Palms YMCA since 1978,” he said.
“There seem to be fewer and fewer people willing to get involved and stay involved,” said the poster boy for communal involvement.
(To be continued)
Sad truth. Very small number of people carry the weight. Andy is a mensch.
I don’t know much about the fraternal organizations one way or the other, but anyone despairing over the spirit of volunteerism in Culver City needs only to look in the direction of any of our CCUSD schools. Parent volunteers are the secret (or not-so-secret) weapon on and around those campuses, taking ’em from great to outstanding.
From CCEF and CCCPTA to any of the campus-specific booster clubs and PTA chapters, to non-affiliated classroom volunteers, these folks are doing the hard work, every day, for nada. And all of this city’s kids are benefitting.
If our school system is the crown jewel of this town (or is at least one of them), that’s thanks in large part to the many folks who volunteer, daily, to make it so.
And there’s always room for more! Come join us!
Patrick Meighan
Linwood E. Howe Boosters